Slashdot Mirror
Devs Flay Microsoft For Withholding Windows 8.1 RTM
CWmike writes "Windows app developers are taking Microsoft to task for the company's decision to withhold Windows 8.1 until mid-October. Traditionally, Microsoft offers an RTM to developers several weeks before the code reaches the general public. On Tuesday, however, Microsoft confirmed that although Windows 8.1 has reached RTM, subscribers to MSDN will not get the final code until the public does on Oct. 17, saying it was not finished. Antoine Leblond, a Microsoft spokesman, said in a blog post, 'In the past, the release to manufacturing milestone traditionally meant that the software was ready for broader customer use. However, it's clear that times have changed.' Developers raged against the decision in comments on another Microsoft blog post, one that told programmers to write and test their apps against Windows 8.1 Preview, the public sneak peak that debuted two months ago. One commenter, 'brianjsw,' said, 'In the real world, developers must have access to the RTM bits before [general availability]. The fact that Microsoft no longer seems to understand this truly frightens me.'"
Now we don't even test anymore - the customers can test.
Go team retard!
so Microsoft wants only the agile and extreme to survive, while the slackers get left behind. makes sense to me.
Sounds more to me like Microsoft is making consumers be beta testers for all of the 3rd party software out there, and putting a much higher support burden on the independent software developers since they can't test their software on the released OS until the public does.
On Tuesday, however, Microsoft confirmed that although Windows 8.1 has reached RTM, subscribers to MSDN will not get the final code until the public does on Oct. 17, saying it was not finished.
What the fuck. No. Words mean things, and "release to manufacturing" means that the software is ready for Releasing To Manufacturing. It doesn't mean "beta 15", or "we think this might be ready", or "release candidate". It means that it's ready to ship and that this is what will be going out the door on launch day.
Google's infinite betas are a bit of mild industry humor, but "beta" doesn't have an inherent definition. You can stretch it to justify almost anything. But "RTM", "release candidate", and others have very specific, unambiguous meanings. If it's not finished, it's not RTM no matter who the hell says it is.
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
that's fine too, they'll keep buying Microsoft since that's what's pre-loaded on almost everything sold. suckers. Remember Ballmer and MS only "in trouble" because their ever growing profits and income are growing quite as fast as they'd like. they aren't hurting at all
Remember Ballmer and MS only "in trouble" because their ever growing profits and income are growing quite as fast as they'd like. they aren't hurting at all
Nobody is suggesting that M$ is in any financial Difficulty. The "in trouble" is 5 quarters of PC sales down. The "in trouble" is missing the boat on massive computing shifts like mobile and cloud. The "in trouble" is its partners are walking away form Windows and announcing greater Android and Chrome products. The "in trouble" is its trying to be a services and devices company...and failing at both. The "in trouble" is those competitors it could crush with spare change or be having or being a monopoly, now have Billions of their own they are struggling to spend. The "in trouble" is suddenly both its cash cows of Windows and OS have competitive replacements at little or no cost.. The "in trouble" is its brand smells of failure. The "in trouble" is everything it had depends on its "windows" monopoly, and suddenly that is looking to be a legacy windows monopoly/Microsoft Office Insurance monopoly, and suddenly those are not not as relevant, and becoming less relevant.
Ballmer is not "in trouble" he is out the door, stabbed in the front by Bill no less, and its not because Microsoft is "in trouble" financially its just all that future computing cash looks to be flowing to other companies who aren't "in trouble"
Insightful, really mods? Got news for ya pal and its that NOBODY IS BUYING WIN 8! In fact I can get a refurb Win 7 machine sold in a few hours, i had a Win 8 machine sit SEVEN MONTHS before it sold, how did I sell it? Put Win 7 on it!
MSFT is screwed on two fronts, 1.- After the MHz Wars switched to the Core War PCs quickly became waaaaaay overpowered compared to the jobs that folks had to do, so that 5 year old C2D laptop, or Phenom I X3 desktop? it has more cycles to spare than Joe Average knows what to do with. 2.- When it does come time to get something new a lot of people are either having the machine they have fixed or are buying a Win 7 system because Win 8 is a DO NOT WANT, its Vista all over again with people using downgrade rights (I've had to deal with downgrades so often that I now charge extra if I have to call for a key) or buying OEM or getting a refurb unit, whatever it takes the vast majority will do because they hate Windows 8!
Dude its not even just the little guys like me, its gotten so bad for the OEMs that Lenovo and Acer are selling their PCs "pre hacked" with a third party shell already bolted on so the machine looks and acts like....Windows 7! That is fricking bad when the #1 OEM on the planet has to hack the shell just to get anybody to buy a PC with Windows 8 on it, I mean how piss poor do you have to be for sales to have the OEMs go out and buy a third party shell and bolt that shit on there just to move some units?
So try looking at those figures again before you say MSFT has the customers locked in, because between Android, ChromeOS, OSX, iOS, and Win 7 frankly there is a lot of choices for those that think Win 8 is a turd and judging by the adoption rates a hell of a lot more are ignoring or actively avoiding Win 8 than are buying.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
It also means they are telling you that they didn't make any real changes and are charging you for the service pack they refuse to create for 8.0.
8.1, or SP1 if you prefer, is a free download.
-David
This post is a public plea for someone within Microsoft to come forward with documentation on the rationale behind the recent apparent loss of all reason and common sense by the company.
Please, please come forward now!
The actions of this company make no sense to us. We are bewildered by the illogically behavior of Microsoft's direction.
Everyone knows that to ruin the useability of Windows by the utter donkey skit that is the Metro Interface makes no sense. There must be some greater reason behind these mysterious decisions that Microsoft has recently under taken.
So give us an internal memo or two! There must have been voices of intelligence within Microsoft who argued against the self-destructive path that it has recently undertaken.
Let us know why Microsoft is committing public suicide.
People are so institutionalized that they can't even operate a PC without a start menu! T
Of course they can....but the start menu was put into Windows for a reason. That reason hasn't gone away so why should the start menu be removed?
No sig today...
I'm more of the opinion they do it to get paid some distribution money from the third party crap. Much like I don't think Oracle is trying to improve Java or Windows when they try to install that Ask.com shit toolbar.
Nobody is doing it to improve anything but their bottom line, and they're willing to install shitware to do it.
I won't even buy an OEM install because it's got so much crap on it -- my mother in law and my wife's laptops took so much time to disable all of the shit it wasn't funny. What should be on paper a decent machine with nice specs is full of shit that slows it down and makes it unusable, because there's no memory left.
More on topic, if Microsoft isn't going to get this to developers before they get it to the public, they're going to have the same problem they've been having ... in addition to nobody actually wanting Windows 8, there won't be any apps for it.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.